Dare, Devil
by Ianuaria
Summary: Amelia's journey post the ending of 14.03. Omelia. Featuring the Seattle Sisters, Shepherd backstory, Derek mentions, people from the past and the struggle of the present.
1. Chapter 1

**_Hello, people. I love Amelia, but this is my first fic where she's a main character. I have no idea why I'm starting another story. I'm hopelessly addicted to writing. It's my stress buster._**

 ** _Anyway, this picks up immediately after 14.03 and will be my AU of what happens...no matter what Shonda decides to throw at us, which I'm sure will be crazy amazing._**

 ** _Anyway, read on and make sure to review to tell me what you thought!_**

* * *

Years. That's how long it took this tumor to grow, to burrow into her brain and push her aside, take up residence in her skull like se hideous parasite. Years.

A few minutes is how long it takes her to go form Dr. Shepherd, superhero, surgeon extraordinaire, to Amelia, _poor girl with the tumor in the head._

Girl. She's a woman now, with an adult's pain and adult responsibilities and adult memories. But she was a girl, a skinny scared lost fool when this started.

 _Ten years, probably_ Koracic said, as blithe as ever, just another patient, another tumor, one more surgery for the journals.

To him, it's ten years; to her its a slew of memories and experiences tainted in hindsight by this horrifying discovery.

This tumor was in her skull when she graduated from medical school. Well, that means she wasn't actually crazy in those years; just normal.

It was there when she worked at Hopkins with Tom, when she worked with Ginsberg. When she went to LA. When she started taking drugs again. When she got pregnant.

When her baby died.

When she left James.

When she left LA.

When Derek died.

When she fell in love with Owen.

When she married him.

Was she crazy? Was she addled, a few cups short of the full set, only one oar in the water, insane, of unsound mind, incapacitated...all the words she's used in front of and behind patients for years, is that what she was for all of it?

She stares again at the tumor glowing orange on her screen - Owen tried to take her tablet away, but she has her scans on her phone too - and asks it, silently.

 _How much did you take?_ How much if her is enmeshed in that senseless lump of tissue? How many of her mistakes were tumor-speak?

The addiction, the second time around, in LA, after Michele died. Ryan's death. Her baby's birth.

How much of that was her decision?

The things she said to Addison, the way she left things with James. That last screaming crying conversation with her mother, before the wedding, the last few weeks with Megan, every time she picks up the phone to call her sisters and puts it down again ...how many of them are her own words?

She turns restlessly in the bed, pillow hot against her cheek, paper bracelet chafing her wrist. She'll be here for weeks.

The nurses are great, competent, accommodating. They look are with pity when the think she can't see. She used to walk tall around here.

She wonders who will help Tom cut this thing out of her head. Edwards would have been the obvious choice. Too bad she ran like a bat out of hell from that burns unit in Texas. Last she heard, she was on a beach in Maui.

Lucky bitch.

She wishes she could do that, get up out if this bed and run, run like crazy till her lungs are burning and her legs are like jelly. Edwards ran. They have a great burns unit here. She just needed to get the hell _away_ from this place.

Mark's burn unit. She feels a little pang of nostalgia every time she walks past that glass door, his name etched in the plaque beside them.

This place is full of memories like that for her. Derek walked these halls once, made history in these ORs. He rode these elevators and these walls heard his voice. How much of it does she stand to lose?

Tom is perfection. He never makes a mistake. She can just see him now, probing into her brain, teasing out tissue.

 _You're insane_ he'd say when she put forth a particularly risky surgical plan. He said it proudly, recognising himself in her.

 _You are definitely crazy_ Meredith says to her when she says something particularly dark. She says with a tinge of surprise, like she's shocked anyone might be a sick and twisted as her.

 _You've lost your mind_ her mother said to her, voice dripping with disgust. She lost her golden boy, but she has her other girls. No need for crazy druggie Amy.

 _You're mad_ Addison would say, looping her arms around her, pulling her close, comforting; she was relentless in her quest to love her. To be the mother she was afraid back then that she would never be.

What about now? Would she come?

 _Better than the sisters I have_. She said that to Addison once. They were, closer than sisters, waiting for Derek to notice them.

She wonders dwrs if Derek is up there right now, laughing his head off at her. He probably is. If he were here, he'd already have a plan. He would cut himself. He wouldn't let anyone else do it, wouldn't trust anyone else.

He took her down with him a few times when he went to college, let her stay in his poky student apartment a few days. She felt grown up, away from home, sleeping on the floor, staring wide eyed and jealous at this world she couldn't wait to enter.

She was fourteen when he went to med school, just starting to experiment with pills. None of the hard stuff. Just a few at first. They felt so good, soaring feather light, hollow as a bubble that popped and she came crashing down. She took more. More and more and more.

She took so much. She remembers her mother sitting empty-eyed in a waiting room. Her blood on Derek's clothes, Addison's hands. Tears on their faces. She took and took and took till they didn't have anything left.

Maybe she did this to herself. The drugs, the booze. She tempted fate, the devil, whatever, flirting with death until it decided to come to her.

She craves it now. A few pills, a bottle, anything to knock her senseless.

She shudders at the thought of what is going to happen. The surgery. The pain.

She's not scared of pain. She welcomes it sometimes. It makes her feel alive, reminds her that she isn't dead yet. She used to seek it. Razors, blades, one or twice a lit cigarette pressed into soft skin. She still has the scars.

She can't do it. She imagines the needles they will put in her. The bottles of pills they will give her. The pump they encourage patients to use to take control of their pain. She can't.

She can't fall back into that spiral.

"Amelia," Owen says, hoarse. "Call someone."

Maggie is crying. She hadn't cried yet herself. _Her_ tumor, and Maggie's crying great hitching sobs that leave her breathless.

Meredith came in and curled against her spine like a cat, warm and solid and _there_. She'll always be there. She won't say it but she'll always be there.

Owen is here, weary and bewildered and she wants to say sorry but she isn't sure how.

There isn't anyone else, she realises. No one else who would want to come help her fall apart.

Except...

She's the one she always calls. She knows ho to deal with the mess that is Amelia Shepherd. She's done it for years.

So she does, and she can hear strains of the life she left behind on the phone when she picks up.

"Addie?" her voice cracks, and she feels her cheeks burn in shame. "I need you."

* * *

 ** _I admit that I use any and all excuses to write about Addison._**

 ** _She's my favorite fictional human. She'll be a part of this, but it's mainly Amelia's show._**

 ** _So should I go on?_**

 ** _Do you like it?_**

 ** _Will you read ?_**

 ** _Will you review? (Say yes.)_**


	2. Chapter 2

**_Thanks so so so much for the beautiful reviews and the amazing response to the first chalter - you guys are awesome!_**

* * *

"Addie, I need you."

She says it again, although it's pretty obvious now that she's standing on the porch with bags in hand, probably looking miserable and sloppy after the long drive.

But this is Addison, Addison who let her stay in her house, Addison who dragged her to rehab, Addison who took her in that first time when she wants even a Shepherd anymore.

 _You were a better sister than the ones I had_ she said to her once. She'd always thought this, from the day Addison set high heeled feet in the Shepherd's house, but she never told her that.

 _And you were way better than my brother_.

Derek is dead. There was that one moment where she was blissfully blank, her memories wiped away, and she asked Meredith to call Derek.

She knew it the minute the words left her mouth, when Meredith's face crumpled like a popped balloon. Derek is dead.

Derek died of a brain bleed, the fucking irony of it. She had a brain tumor the size of a clementine. They're both rockstar neurosurgeons, who _became_ neurosurgeons because they watched their father's brains get plastered to the wall.

You'd think God would get tired of this already, but apparently he thinks it's pretty funny.

Or maybe God's a she. Whatever.

These are the things that run through her mind as she stands on the porch of the house her son was most likely conceived in, sweating a little in the long sleeved shirt she wore because it was chilly in Seattle and she forgot this is freaking LA.

While Addison stares at her like she's seen a ghost, mouth slightly open, eyes wide.

"Addie?" she says slowly. She doesn't think she could stand it if she says no. If she can't stay here.. she has nowhere to go.

Her ex- sister shrieks wordlessly, flinging her arms around her so tight she's afraid she might pop a rib.

Jake comes into the entryway, looking concerned at first, his warm face splitting into a grin.

"Look who's here," he calls into the living room; a small boy with flopping dark hair and bright brown eyes comes skidding in sock feet, joining into the group hug with a excited yell.

"Aunt Amy," he sings, arms around her waist, face tilted up to her, and she feels her throat constrict as she remembers the other nephew and nieces she left behind. "I missed you!"

"We all did." Jake smiles, giving her a one-armed hug; he's holding a small redheaded girl in the other, her dark eyes surveying the visitor with interest.

"Hello, Cat." she says solemnly. She's never met this miracle-child, the baby whose nursery her son was to have slept in. Her son died and Addison never had her baby and that nursery sat empty until Henry came along, and then finally his baby sister, who now turns her face into her father's shoulder.

"It's Aunt Amy, Cat." Henry says. "She's _really_ cool."

 ** _.._**

She feels decidedly uncool, sitting on the deck with Addison like nothing has changed. Her life has come full circle.

She left LA for ... what? To be in Derek's shadow again? To prove to her self that she could never have had the family life he did?

She runs, that's what she does. She ran from James and everything she had built in LA. Maybe that was the tumor.

She ran from Owen. What was _that_?

You're not supposed to _run._ You're supposed to stick it out and fight, like Addison and Derek, like Meredith and Derek.

Although it was mostly Addison and Meredith who did the sticking and the fighting; maybe Shepherds aren't cut out for this.

She feels a slight tug at her neck and looks down to see Caitlyn's pudgy fingers curled around the thin gold chain she's wearing. The child took to her after a while, curling upup in her lap and allowing herself to be fed small bites of dinner, most of which ended up on her dress, but was nice to be accepted.

And now she's hanging on determinedly to her necklace, tiny lips pursed.

"Let go of that." Addison says sternly; she sounds like she doesn't use that tone very often. She probably spoils the baby rotten, late-life miracle that she is.

She knows that she also spoils Henry rotten, though. That's just how she is. She likes to do things for people. Does she notice that sometimes, people don't do things back?

Cat ignores her mother, opening her rosebud mouth to taste the thick gold band dangling from the chain. And then drops it onto her finger instead, admiring it.

"I'm married to your kid now." she laughs, kissing Cat's sweet-smelling head.

"Amy." Addison sighs, her eyes sad. She's looking at the ring. Owen's ring, the one he pressed into her palm still warm from his skin, and she held it after he'd released her from that hug until she wasn't sure if her own body had warmed it or his.

She didn't ask him why he left without telling her. She didn't ask him to stay.

Tumor?

She hopes.

"We both decided it was...better this way." she says softly, swinging her legs onto the lounger. Jake's gone to the hospital to deal with a hysterical pregnant patient - _do you have any other kind_ Addison teased him - and Henry's in bed and Cat, the little madam, is soaking up the solitary attention.

"I'm sorry I couldn't come when you called." Addison replies.

"I never come when you call." she reminds Addison. "It's okay."

"You were _sick_ , Amy." she says. "You had a .. a brain tumor, you weren't calling to invite me to a party."

"True." she concedes. "But I never came down, even after the baby."

"Derek had just died." Addison says, looking away. "I understand."

She knows it was a difficult birth, that they both nearly died, that Jake had been scared enough to call her in Seattle, his voice shaking and hoarse, to tell her she might need to come.

She'd just buried her brother. She was busy picking up and clearing away the detritus he left behind, patients and unfinished work and a missing wife and children. She couldn't handle burying her best sister. And thankfully, Addison managed to not die - she always comes out on top - and she didn't have to, and she never gave it another thought.

Tumor?

She hopes.

"Megan lives here now." she says, waving a hand vaguely around her. She knows the house is on the beach, that it has windows looking out over the water, that the air smells of salt water and they can hear the gulls. It must be here somewhere. It's such a small world.

"Who?" Addison asks, quirking an eyebrow as she prises a wineglass from her daughter's marauding hands.

"Owen's sister, Megan, the dead one."

"His dead sister lives here." she asks, frowning. "Did Koracic get your whole tumor?"

"I mean his dead sister who wasn't actually dead lives here with her adopted kid and Meredith's ex-boyfriend." she clarifies, accepting the rescued and filled glass.

"Juice." Cat says, reaching for her hand. Addison swoops her away, making her giggle wildly.

"He didn't get your whole tumor, did he?"

 ** _.._**

She calls Owen when she's finally lying in her old guest-room bed, listening to the waves crash against the beach and Addison singing wildly off-key in Caitlyn's room.

She calls him three times.

He doesn't pick up. They need to talk, to discuss things, like who gets the watercolor of Puget Sound and who gets the vacuum cleaner and who gets the freaking magnets on the fridge.

They need to talk.

And this isn't her tumor talking, it's _her_ _,_ maybe for the first time in years.

She hopes.

* * *

 _ **Okay, so this is not defined Omelia. Or any pairing. Not yet.**_

 _ **It's kind of Amy's journey, where she goes next,trying to figure out how much of ther life was tumor and hiw much was real, where she's going next, that sort of stuff.**_

 _ **There will be lost of people from the past, because if there's one thing I hate about Grey's it's that they believe in forgetting the characters' whole pasts, like they were just dropped into Grey-Sloan with no memory of here they came from. And also I love writing backstory.**_

 _ **So please review and let me know !**_


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